


nor are we forgiven

by RippingOffZeppelin



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Character Study, M/M, Pining, Stormpilot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-01
Updated: 2016-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-10 22:03:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5602663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RippingOffZeppelin/pseuds/RippingOffZeppelin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The thing is Finn is always running.</p><p>His whole life in some way, he’s always been running- from something, from someone, from himself.</p><p>He runs- and he can't seem to stop-</p><p>Till he finds something worth staying for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	nor are we forgiven

**Author's Note:**

> This works as a kind of companion piece to 'we have not touched the stars' (Poe's POV) but that doesn't have to be read to understand this one
> 
> Title taken again from 'Snow and Dirty Rain' by Richard Siken
> 
> (from the line-  
> 'We have not touched the stars, nor are we forgiven, which brings us back  
> to the hero's shoulders and the gentleness that comes,not from the absence of violence, but despite the abundance of it.)

The thing is Finn is always running.

His whole life in some way, he’s always been running- from something, from someone, from himself

He runs, and he can’t seem to stop.

-

He gets sent to Jakku, it’s his first actual mission with The First Order and he tries to pretend like his hands aren’t shaking as he holds onto his blaster, standing in the ship surrounded by other Troopers.

They overpower the village as soon as they land, blasters raised and ready to fire, they’re here to get something important, they were told, that must be obtained at all costs. He stands with his blaster raised and ready and then there’s a flash of gunfire from the Troopers around him. He stops, lowering his blaster till it rests at his hip and looks around at the other Troopers shooting innocent people, _unarmed_ people, he freezes as the screams start and thinks over the words ‘at all costs’ and realises exactly what that meant.

He’s just raising his blaster again when there’s a blast right next to him and Slip’s staggering forward, somehow losing enough of his armour to leave a bloody handprint on his helmet. He can see the streak of red through his visor and suddenly he can’t _breathe_ everything is too bright, too loud, too much as he watches his friend fall. He kneels uselessly next to Slip, he can feel the sand, that made its way into his armour, scratching against him, he can hear every scream now, amplified and terrified and he’s never felt more _lost._ He has just enough time to think ‘Oh god this is real’ before Slip goes still.

He runs- past blasts and other Troopers, can feel the sand sinking under his feet with every step, everything’s on fire, and he runs.

It’s not long before Kylo Ren steps into the middle of everything, pulling out a specific man and questioning him. He stands shoulder to shoulder with the other Troopers, waiting for an order, blaster raised at the civilians they’ve circled, his breathing is harsh and fast as he looks at their faces, as he sees their fear.

“Kill all of them” it’s a direct order and there’s no hesitation from a single Trooper around him, he thinks the words ‘at all costs’ over in his head and wonders if he’s the only one who thinks this is too big of a cost to pay. He thinks of Slip, of the red he can still see in his vision, he imagines a world on fire, just like this, imagines being in the centre of it, starting the fire that burns it all down, he thinks of more missions like this one, and doesn’t shoot a blast.

They’re piling off the ship, back on base, one at a time moving off to get back to work, he stays out of the way of every Trooper getting off, waits till they’ve all moved away before he turns back onto the ship away from where anyone can see him and pulls off his helmet. It’s become too heavy, too restricting, he claws at it because he just needs _air,_ just needs to stop seeing the blood blocking his vision, needs to stop hearing civilians screams, like they’re trapped in his armour and will stop playing once he gets it off. Captain Phasma appears behind him, looks him over and tells him to report his blaster for inspection, and he knows once he does, once they realise he didn’t fire a single shot he’ll be sent back to reprogramming, will be punished for his disloyalty for his disobedience. ‘I have to leave’ he thinks ‘I have to get out of here’ and it catches, that small idea, moves through his body with an unfamiliar comfort of knowing it’s the right thing to do and he wonders if this is what reprogramming is meant to do, to stop this kind of feeling.

He’s made his way to the room where Ren’s keeping the prisoner he captured on Jakku, the best pilot in the resistance, they’re saying, a valuable asset. He stands outside the door shifting his weight between his feet, sweat dotting his forehead under his helmet, ‘You can do this’ he thinks, staring at the metal door, it’s about time to start doing some real running.

It’s easier then he thought it’d be getting charge of the prisoner, he grips tighter to his gun as he moves down the corridor, grips tighter to the pilots arm and wonders if he can feel his hands shaking.

“Turn here”-

With his mask off he can see the pilots face better, can see the bags under his bright brown eyes, can see his jaw clenching an unclenching, as he asks why he’s helping him.

“Because it’s the right thing to do” comes out before he can stop it, it’s not what he was meant to say but the pilot gets it anyway and then they’re off, moving quickly again through the maze of corridors to the air base. 

He’s sitting in the gunner seat, trying to remember everything the pilot told him about how to shoot, when he’s asked his name, he answers with the only one he was ever given, the numbers he goes by, they still taste bad in his mouth even after all this time. So when the pilot shouts a new name over the loud sounds of the fighter, of the blasters, he grabs at the chance to run away from FN-2187, to leave that last piece of a Stormtrooper behind and become something else

“Finn” he yells “I like that” and he does, it fits him in a weird way, in a way nothing has before, it fits him in the way that it’s _his._ It _belongs_ to _him._

“I’m Poe, Poe Dameron”

Poe Dameron, he thinks, the best pilot in the resistance, Poe Dameron, _Good to meet you._

The blast knocks him hard against the wall of the ship, takes him by surprise because he was too busy arguing about running, about leaving, about far far away from here, not back, not back to burning villages, to innocent screams, to gunfire, Poe Dameron please, far far away from here, but they go down anyway. They spiral towards Jakku regardless of what either of them want and Finn has enough time to think ‘I’m going to be another person who dies in that goddamn sand’ before everything goes black.

He doesn’t know how long it was between him hitting the planet and jumping to his feet, but it’s still as bright as it was when they were crashing so he figures it hasn’t been long, breathing heavy from the impact, from the heat, it takes his mind a few moments, a few choruses of ‘I’m not dead’ ‘I’m not dead’ before he realises Poe isn’t next to him. There’s a frantic moment of worry, that he doesn’t quite know what to do with, before he runs, following the black smoke that billows stark against the blue sky. Runs towards the wreckage of the ship shouting Poe’s name- it’s on fire, of course it’s on fire, but there might still be a way, a way he crawled out, maybe he jumped before it hit the sand, maybe.

He leans in trying to search through the mess of metal, ignoring the feeling of dread that moves through him when all he finds is a jacket.

He doesn’t stop yelling Poe’s name as he clutches the jacket to his chest watching the ship be swallowed by the desert- it leaves an echoing ache in his bones as it disappears completely.

Poe Dameron, he thinks, best pilot in the resistance, _I’m sorry._

Finn really hates sand.

It takes him hours of walking through the desert to find something that resembles a town, he arrives with his throat burning and eyes watering, sweat causing his black clothes to stick to his body. He runs through the tents choking out the word ‘water’ as best he can to anyone who’ll listen, which turns out to be no-one. He ends up shoving his face into a water hole which tastes about as good as the murky brown water looks but it’s better then nothing as it soothes the dryness of his throat. He doesn’t have the energy to be annoyed when the giant creature drinking the water next to him shoves him out of the way to reclaim the thing for itself. He lies in the sand trying to catch his breath when he hears yelling, he stands up and walks towards the noise. Two men are fighting a girl over something in a sack, he’s still slowly moving towards them when he sees one of the men hit her across the face

“Hey!” he yells running to help but he’s not needed, as the girl bites the guy who’s holding her back, getting free of his grip and beating both of them with a metal staff till they hit the ground and Finn stops, impressed despite himself. He watches as she cuts the cords loose pulling back the tarp to reveal an orange and white droid, Finn freezes staring at it- ‘orange and white’ he thinks, ‘Poe’s droid’, ‘Poe Dameron’s droid’ and then the girls running at him, it takes him a few moments to realise whats happening but then he’s running too.

He runs- weaving through the tents and kicking up sand but he doesn’t get very far before his face is met with a dull thump from the metal staff, he falls back groaning in pain, as the girl crouches next to him calling him thief. The droid beeps angrily at him what he can only assume is the same thing the girl's saying, there’s an ache across the bridge of his nose where she hit him and sharp pains running through his leg every time the droid shocks him but the words

“That coat belongs to his master” somehow manage to hurt him more because the poor thing doesn’t know-

Poe Dameron, he thinks, best pilot in the resistance, _He’s gone,_

and when he looks at the droid and has to say the words “He didn’t make it” he feels like he watched the ship explode all over again.

There's a yell from somewhere in the crowd, Finn looks up to see The First Order ships move slowly above them and he knows they’re here looking for him, and from what he remembers Poe saying they’re after this droid too. He hears the beginning of panic start through the town and decides he’s not going to be another casualty of this fucking planet, grabbing the girl’s hand, he runs.

He runs- moving as fast as the sand will allow him, trying to weave his way through all the cover they can get, the girl drops his hand as soon as she can, overtaking him as she heads for a ship to get them away ‘Yes’ he thinks ‘Out of the system, out of here, let’s go’.

They end up in a ship that looks about forty years old that the girl so wonderfully called ‘garbage’ just a moment ago and he thinks that doesn’t really inspire much confidence in this escape, but she gets it in the air and they’re off. He takes seat in the gunner chair and tries to push down the uneasy feeling he gets when he thinks about how this reminds him of Poe. 

They manage to escape, make it out of Jakku with not as many problems as he thinks they could have had. 

“I’m Rey” the girl- Rey- tells him after he introduces himself with the name Poe gave him and he feels bad lying to her after she just saved his life, but she doesn’t know him, doesn’t trust him and saying he’s a StormTrooper, one of the people who were just trying to kill them, wouldn’t give her much reason to. They end up making a plan to go to the Resistance’s base, get the droid there to complete his mission and he thinks ‘there are worse places to run to’ just so he doesn’t have to think about having to explain the loss of their best pilot.

Getting caught by The First Order again inspires as much fear and it does frustration, ‘it shouldn’t be this hard’ he thinks watching as they are pulled through the mouth of the giant ship ‘if escaping is the right thing to do’ but it ends up not being The Order at all but it still turns out to be just as frustrating and just and terrifying as he’s running for his life away from stray Rathtars. They manage to get off the fighter in the Falcon, Finn helping a Wookie- Chewie- to a seat so he can help with his injuries. Han Solo, _Han fucking Solo_ , and Rey manage to fly the thing with ease, pulling it in and out of light speed away from the danger like trained pilots.

They make it to a place where Solo assures them they can get a ship The First Order won’t be looking for, it’s a castle of weird creatures and beings from across the galaxy all mixed together, and Finn thinks he would be intrigued if he wasn’t so anxious.

Maz, the woman who’s meant to help them, is less then half Finn’s height with orange skin and bulging eyes which sit behind round glasses, she looks wise in a way he can’t really describe and when she looks at Solo and is able to see that he’s hiding, able to tell him what he needs to do and how he’s not doing it Finn thinks he was probably right about her. So when she turns to him leaning across the table to stare he can feel his hands start to shake again.

“You have the eyes of a man who wants to run” she tells him and he doesn’t know what to say to that, he knows she’s right, can see it written on his face that all he does is run, that this entire time he’s been thinking ‘this is not my fight’ ‘this is not my fight’ over and over. Can even feel himself being pulled away from this right now but she looks at him, really _looks_ at him, when she says it and he feels anger flush through his body, can feel the word ’TRAITOR’ burning on his forehead. He wants to tell her then he’s not running from this, wants to tell her the only reason he’s _been_ running this long is nothing has made him want to stop.

“You don’t know a thing about me” is what he settles on instead and tries not to feel too much like a hypocrite when he ends up running anyway.

He’s loading boxes onto a ship for some guys who’ll trade him a ride for help when he sees The First Order Finalizer move through the sky again ‘this is not my fight’ he thinks dropping the box he was holding and running back to the castle 'this is not my fight'. He finds Han and Chewie at the same time Resistance X Wings fill the sky, blasts aimed at the First order TIEs and he could almost cry in relief at the help.

The lightsaber is cold and heavy in his hands, untrained and unpractised he does the best he can with the only weapon he was given, he feels a familiar anger move through him as a Trooper he recognises throws the word ‘Traitor’ at him like a knife. He doesn’t have time to figure out why it bothers him so much, being called that, as he runs at the Trooper with the saber, it’s not an easy fight, not at all, so when he’s saved by a well aimed blast from Han Solo he thanks him sincerely.

He sees Ren in the distance then, and he automatically takes a few steps back before he notices her, Rey- unconscious in his arms being moved into one of the ships and he runs.

He runs- screaming her name until he realises how useless it is, watching the ship take off with her in it he feels failure heavy in his bones as he ends up following the original plan to go to the Resistance base but does so without her.

It’s crowded on the air base, people unloading ships and yelling over the sounds of engines, he would have missed BB-8s frantic beeping had it not crashed into his legs when it rushed by him.

He’s watching it move when he sees him, orange flight suit matching the ones the other pilots are wearing, stepping off a ship that matches all the others around it, but he stands out amongst them. Bright and strong against the grey tarmac- 

Poe Dameron, best pilot in the resistance, _You’re alive._

And Finn doesn’t know what to do with the rush of happiness that sweeps through him as he watches Poe crouch down to talk to BB8, doesn’t know what to do as Poe’s eyes find him across the base.

So he does the only thing that makes sense, the only thing he knows how to, he _runs._

Poe meets him halfway and they collide into a hug that’s nothing less then desperate and Finn can’t stop repeating the words ‘You’re alive’ ‘You’re alive’ ‘You’re alive’ in his head like they’re stuck on a frantic loop of relief.

He runs- but here grounded in Poe’s arms he realises Poe makes him want to stop running, makes him want to _stay_  and shit, he has no idea what to do with that _._

They pull back and Finn doesn’t realise he’s laughing until Poe does too, it’s not manic, he thinks, but it may as well be. Poe’s grinning as he looks Finn over, like he’s checking to make sure it’s really him, that he’s really alive and-

“Is that my jacket?” he asks and Finn feels his body burn where it rests against his shoulders, he offers an apologetic smile but when he moves to give it back Poe stops him

“No keep it, it suits you” he barely catches the “You’re a good man” that follows as his heart beats loudly in his ears but he doesn’t miss the hand that rests against his arm and he can’t stop smiling.

“I need your help” he says and it feels like they’re back where they started, with him standing across from Poe and asking him for as much trust as he can give him, and getting all of it in return.

Standing in the briefing room he knows he shouldn’t be pretending that he knows how to shut down the shields, claiming vast knowledge of the winding corridors and base structures but he has to get to Rey and he knows he has to go in himself, doesn’t trust anyone else to.

He feels something like regret when he’s put on the ground mission, hopes he can find a way to fix it all when they make it to the base, but right now all he knows is he has to find her, has to get her back- and when he turns to look at Poe before he leaves it feels a lot like running again. 

He thinks this might be the first time he feels like he’s running from something truely important and when Poe smiles at him he feels his heart ache.

-

Everything happens too quickly once they’re inside the base, everything goes _wrong_ too quickly, and they’re running, they keep running and Finn can’t stop replaying Han falling can’t stop seeing his hand reach out for Ren, he has to get away from this fight, he has to run. 

They’re outside and it’s freezing, Rey’s leading them back to the Falcon, he can hear explosions in the distance and thinks of Poe, thinks about seeing him again soon, thinks about saying all the things he hasn’t had time to, thinks about being able to stop, being able to stay.

Ren comes out of nowhere casting a red light through the forest, looking broken and frantic he moves towards them and suddenly Rey’s being pushed through the air, slamming into a tree with a noise Finn hopes he’s hearing wrong. ‘This is not my fight’ he thinks picking up the lightsaber ‘This is not my fight’. When he turns it on the blue light shines brightly against the red of Ren's saber, mixing together on the white canvas of snow around them and then they’re fighting, moving against each other, harsh and rough. Finn tries to move quicker, tries to remember what he did on Takodana tries to use Ren’s injury to his advantage but this is his second time using a lightsaber and its just as hard as it was the first time but he likes to think he made it at least a little difficult for Ren to overpower him.

He gets pushed back against a tree, one of the sides of the glowing red saber burns into his shoulder and he’s momentarily blinded by the pain, ‘we’ve lost’, he thinks, ‘this is it’, he turns his head to the side screaming through the heat digging into him and catches sight of Rey lying in the snow, thinks of Poe somewhere above him flying like he was born to, _fighting_ for something he believes in. Thinks about the Resistance members lighting up The First Orders base right now and how none of them are running from this, not now, not here, not when they’re so close to finishing what they started and he ignores the tug at the back of his mind that tells him to move, to run and he pushes back against Ren.

It’s a fight he was never going to win, a lightsaber battle against a Jedi was never something he was going to walk away from so it’s not really surprising when he gets knocked away, losing the saber in the snow as Ren takes another swing. There’s a white hot burn ripping through his back where he gets hit, clawing it’s way through his entire body and he falls to the ground before he blacks out screaming. 

-

The first thing he notices is the lack of burning, his back aches but it’s a dull throb that doesn’t follow through his whole body, he opens his eyes slowly, blinking against the harsh light. It takes him a few moments for his brain to catch up, to adjust to the fact that he’s no longer face down in a pile of snow waiting to die, to adjust to the fact he’s _alive._

Poe sits in a chair next to his bed, eyes closed and head leant back, there’s bags under his eyes and a large cut across his forehead stitched and clean, Finn watches the steady rise and fall of his chest for a few moments before calling out to him. Poe’s eyes snap open finding his, his face lights up and he lets out a stunned laugh before moving closer

“Have you been waiting for me to wake up?” he asks surprised, Poe nods tells him ‘Yeah’ before smiling brightly again and Finn loves that smile wants to live in that smile, made up of warmth and kindness, wants to tell Poe this, wants to tell him everything he’s been thinking since the moment he met him.

“How long?” he says instead trying to sit up to look at Poe better, but a gentle hand finds its way to his shoulder softly pushing him so he stays down

“Not long” he says running his hand down Finn’s arm and he can feel heat moving through him from where Poe’s touching him

“A couple minutes or a couple hours?” 

“A couple weeks” he says as easy as anything, and Finn’s chest burns at the thought that it was such a simple thing for Poe to do, to wait for him that long, he pushes himself slowly onto his elbows, staring into Poe’s eyes

“Why?” he asks searching Poe’s face, he sees him mull it over, looking for the right answer and when he says

“Because it’s the right thing to do” Finn’s heart skips a beat and he doesn’t think he’s ever going to be able to stop smiling

“Poe Dameron” he says taking Poe’s hand “When did you become such a softie?” and Poe grins even bigger at him, wild and beautiful as he squeezes Finn’s hand.

The thing is Finn’s always running- From something, from someone, from himself, but here holding Poe’s hand, grounded and happier then he’s ever been, he’s finally found something worth staying for.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I am still Stormpilot trash
> 
> I am still not sorry
> 
> talk to me on tumblr: http://wesandrstoned.tumblr.com/


End file.
